Many people out here in Civil 3D Land wait for the first Autodesk Civil 3D update to migrate to a new Civil 3D release. Maybe there is a reason for that. Fancy that? The Autodesk Civil 3D 2027.1 Update hit the street this week. 2027.1 Update packs a bunch.
As is the norm for many recent Civil 3D release cycles, there are probably more important and/or significant…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Aug 06, 2026
Tags Civil 3D 2027, XREF, IREF, DREF, Upgrade, Update, Data Shortcut Manager, Data Shortcut Editor, Fix Broken References
Our civil engineering and survey projects in Autodesk Civil 3D and other Autodesk apps generally tend to grow larger and more complex with time. Is it just me? Our bottom line requires that we spend some time and attention to regular drawing maintenance as our project timelines grow longer and the project complexity increases.
Hopefully, we learn, practice,…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
May 14, 2026
Tags Drawing Cleanup, project maintenance, Data Shortcut Manager, ViewFrame, ViewFrame Group, Upgrade, Update, Civil 3D 2027, Sheet Set
Many, if not most, of our Civil 3D Projects will involve multiple Reference Replacement processes and workflows. Many of us in Civil 3D Land employ the classic AutoCAD-based External References (XREF) basemap strategy in our plan set publications. We publish a stack of separate drawings to better separate and effectively manage the content of the…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
May 22, 2025
Tags XREF, DREF, IREF, Project Management, Data Shortcut Manager, Data Shortcut Editor, Reference Explorer, video, DWF
Sometimes a broken Reference problem in Civil 3D will stare us right in the face and we still miss and/or cannot find and/or see the reason why. Been there. Done that. Got my T shirt. How can this be? Out here in Civil 3D Land every day we use this vital and basic file Reference stuff like our lives depend on it.
If you tell me that the…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Oct 10, 2024
Tags DWF, XREF, IREF, TREF, project template, Data Shortcut Manager, Reference Explorer, Project Management
Out here in Civil 3D Land we do civil engineering and survey work. That means that grading and Civil 3D Surfaces play a significant part of our daily workflows. Thankfully, Autodesk has been working hard on improved Civil 3D performance. How we structure our Civil 3D Projects and how we perform some basic Civil 3D Project maintenance work can matter.
One…
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Posted by
Tench Tilghman
Feb 08, 2024
Tags surface, corridor surface, Data Shortcut Manager, DREF, performance, Project Management, TIN, Civil 3D